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Pre-Teen Fiction

Peanut Butter Friends in a Chop Suey World

NOW IN ITS SEVENTH PRINTING. OVER 35,000 COPIES CIRCULATING WORLDWIDE.

ISBN: 978-0-89084-751-0

Publisher: BJU Press, 1994

Length: 186 pp./ages 9-12

Format: softbound

Amy is determined to be a good missionary when her family moves to Taiwan. But the neighbor girls laugh at her, and Sunday services at the Chinese church become an ordeal. It seems that the only place she feels comfortable is at the English- speaking school with her “peanut butter friends.”

This book practically wrote itself because it was my life on a kids level. I took an American girl and thrust her onto the mission field in Taiwan and let nature take its course. The issues Amy faces are real issues MK’s face every day. I saw many of these things happen in the lives of kids I knew in Taiwan. My own daughters, however, grew up in Taiwan and didn’t have to make many of these adjustments.

Since this book first came out in 1994 I keep seeing it pop up in the most unusual places. I’ve met adults who read it as a child and are now serving the Lord on their own. It is now it its sixth edition and has been printed with three different covers.

The Lord has used this simple book to teach kids about missions and even prepare kids for the mission field. Organizations that use it to teach cultural issues include Ethnic Harvest, GO International, World Missions Bookstore and Association of Christian Schools International.

Bob Jones University Press uses it as a companion novel to their third grade Bible Truths curriculum.

Though written specifically about Taiwan, it can help the reader understand cultural adjustments that need to be made in other countries too.

Two Sides to Everything

ISBN: 978-1-59166-166-5

Publisher: BJU Press, 2004

Length: 160 pp./ages 9-12

Format: softbound

“While his mother recuperates from an accident that has left her partially paralyzed, Josh leaves Denver and goes to stay at his Uncle Hamish’s New Zealand sheep farm, where his faith in God is strengthened as he faces new challenges.”